The development of high energy density storage devices can be a laborious and time consuming process. A typical energy storage device might include a first polymer electrode, a second electrode in electrochemical communication with the first electrode, a separator material between the two electrodes, and an electrolyte or other mobile phase in contact with both electrodes that can dissociate into anions and cations. There are many different chemical materials that could be used for each of these elements. So, the number of possible of combinations that might need to be tested can be huge. For testing these combinations one has to, in essence, build a representative device for each combination of materials and then run that device through the desired set of tests to characterize that combination of materials. Thus, finding the best combination of materials can involve constructing and electrically testing thousands and thousands of devices representing the many different possible combinations of materials and electrolytes.
The regimen of tests required to satisfactorily measure the electrical characteristics of a device might also be quite large. For example, the tests might include measuring capacitance, resistance, energy in versus energy out, Coulombic efficiency, energy density, power density, specific energy, specific power, IR drop, IR gain, current density, etc.